Tech —

Sony’s Xperia TL “Bond Phone” not ready for double-O work

Sony's latest smartphone is solid, but hardly MI6 material.

Sony's latest handset's claim to fame is its appearance in the latest Bond movie, Skyfall, handled by no lesser a man's man than Daniel Craig himself. The phone actually appears for only a handful of seconds, while Bond toys with it alone at a bar (presumably, like every loner out there, to keep other people from talking to him). But while the choice of celebrity association is beyond reproach, we found many of its features fall short of the power and ease of use implied by its honorific.

The Xperia TL back has a very subtle concave shape. When it's laid on its back on a table, only the bottom edge and the rear camera touch. The back is slightly rubberized, soft, and feels comfortable to hold in portrait orientation. (But if you so happen to hold it in landscape, it can feel a little like a boomerang.) One of the finer points of its design is the haptic feedback: shallow, tight vibrations that ring through the phone when we type or select items.

Aping a layout more typical of Windows Phone handsets, the sleep button is in the center of the right hand side, above the volume rocker and hardware camera button. A headphone jack is on the top right corner and the microUSB port is embedded on the left-hand side. On the upper right side, a trapdoor flips open to reveal the SIM and microSD slots. The obvious undocumented storage use cases here: appropriately-shaped cyanide pills, tiny spare GPS radio for concealing about your person when you know your phone will be confiscated by Soviets, breath strips.

Per the phone's heritage, it comes out of the box with the iconic gun-barrel image as the home screen background and a default notification sound of James Bond-y twanging guitars. A few other Bond elements come preloaded: more backgrounds with a gold-coated woman holding a silenced PP7 or Daniel Craig brooding out a window; stills from Skyfall in a photo album; a James Bond theme ringtone.

If you are disenchanted with the default Play Music app, Sony places a Walkman-branded one front and center to manage your music catalog. This, sadly, improves the experience in no appreciable way. In theory, the app can connect to your Facebook account and show music that friends have shared, but it appears to require that those friends share that music through their own Walkman-branded app. Dare to dream, Sony.

The Xperia TL's 4.6-inch 1280x720 screen is very crisp, and text throughout the OS looks great. By default, pages sometimes render strangely in the browser with very tiny text that only flows across half the screen (so once you zoom in, you have edge-to-edge text that's a readable size). The phone is running Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich—not the latest Android OS by a few months now, though Sony promises Jelly Bean is coming.

The Xperia TL boasts a 13-megapixel camera on the rear that can record 1080p video. Many phone manufacturers have made a point of improving their camera apps over the last year, adding features like continuous background shooting that allows users to scroll back and forward in time for a better shot or near instantaneous shot-to-shot lags.

The Xperia TL's camera has no such improvements; shot-to-shot times remain a bit slow and the app itself is pretty bare-bones beyond the usual Android offerings (panoramas, smile detection, self-timer, and so on). Still, the Xperia TL turns out some decent photos even in low-light scenarios. We found that it can't resolve bright lights as well as the iPhone 4S's camera can.

The speaker on the Xperia TL does not get very loud, even at the highest volume setting, though there is little distortion. We noticed that at lower volumes the speaker could sound a bit muffled and the bass was weak, but otherwise it was adequate. Like so many phones, it's somewhat inconveniently placed on the back at the bottom center, so your hand will more or less always be covering it. Actual phone call quality is likewise fine, but not mindblowing.

Inside the Xperia TL is a 1.5GHz dual-core Krait CPU, Adreno 225 GPU, 1GB of RAM, 16GB of storage, and a 4G LTE chip. When it comes to performance, the Xperia TL delivers middling-to-low numbers compared to its contemporaries. It scores around 1600 in the Sunspider Javascript benchmark. It fares slightly better with Google's Octane benchmark, with a score of 1430 compared to the Optimus G's 1627, the Galaxy S III's 1645, and the iPhone 5's 1298 (the phone's Javascript engine does not support typed arrays, so the benchmark returns an "incomplete" message at the end).

The phone is more middle-of-the-pack in GLBenchmark: 13 and 28 frames per second in the offscreen Egypt HD and classic tests, and 20 and 50 frames per second for the offscreen test. This puts it in roughly the same performance league as the Galaxy S III, but far off from the Optimus G and the iPhone 5. So not Bond.

Sony quotes the Xperia TL's battery at 1850mAh, or about seven hours of talk time, 16 hours of music playback, five hours of video, or 450 hours of standby—not the most reassuring of figures. But in our video tests, we found that the phone actually performed better than estimates, with about six hours and 15 minutes of movies at 50 percent brightness and 100 percent volume. Turning the brightness all the way up would temper that figure a bit, but the screen looks sufficiently bright in most situations when only turned up halfway.

In regular use, with some moderate e-mailing, messaging, Web browsing, the occasional app download, and short YouTube-watching session, we found the phone was fresh out of battery by the end of the work day. It lasted between eight and nine hours. Android phones are still mixed bags when it comes to battery life, so the Xperia TL isn't alone in this offense, but we think buyers can expect to be annoyed by the insufficient battery.

It's hard to buy this phone as The Bond Phone when the price is set at a modest $99.99 with two-year contract on AT&T, but we played along for a bit to see if there was any substance behind the name. Sadly, the Bond Phone holds only so-so performance, a decent but not-great camera, and an ambitious body design that ends up being more form than function. The only Bond that Q might bequeath such a modest handset to is Peter Sellers.

The bad:

Bond accents (ringtones, text tones, backgrounds, included content) are a little cheesy and functionally out of step with the times we live in.

The ugly:

Given how the phone is calibrated relative to other offerings, the Bond association is at best nonsensical, at worst an insult to the Bond-quality technology legacy.

Casey Johnston
Casey Johnston is the former Culture Editor at Ars Technica, and now does the occasional freelance story. She graduated from Columbia University with a degree in Applied Physics. Twitter@caseyjohnston

I went to see Skyfall last weekend and this was being pushed heavily in the pre film adverts.

Once the scene in the film arrived I nearly spat my popcorn over the person in front, they've done the usual film/tv crime of not showing the proper interface but instead mocking up something in post. Just about acceptable usually due to either licencing issues or readability I guess but if your selling the phone as a Bond edition I'd expect that he'd be using the same os as you're selling!

Before someone thinks I'm some misogynistic pig actually I'm a big fan of women everywhere (FWIW I've just spent a decent amount of money directly on getting Tammy Baldwin, Claire McCaskill etc elected) but at this point I have to say that at Ars' mobile section they have clearly demonstrated they are simply not up to this otherwise not too challenging task (see other reviews citing benchmarks without even understanding native vs java-based apps etc.) Whether it's because it's not 'chich'-enough or lack of diligence or something else, I don't know.But the quality of this review is simply waaay below what I've come to expect here, sorry.

You've just confirmed that you are misogynistic by bringing it up. I'm sure the author can decipher criticism and feedback without issue and without putting it down to you being misogynistic. You insult the story author's intelligence by assuming the Author would be offended.

What are people's general consensus on Skyfall? I personally think it started off really well, but by the middle it went downhill very quickly. I was honestly surprised there was a review on his phone, I didn't realise Sony would cash in on that, as the phone wasn't even shown prominently!

I really don't want to offend anyone but seriously, at this point I'm not sure whether any Ars mobile phone review worth even reading it, much less replying... but here's my last attempt to stop this barrage of awfully shallow, dime-a-dozen reviews - because this one again sports some spectacularly ill-informed sentences that are completely opposite of my personal experience (~2 months now) with this phone...

2. "Still, the Xperia TL turns out some decent photos even in low-light scenarios."

Yeah, it actually mops the floor with the iPhone or any other phone around me including the Nexus 4, let's just get the facts out (something that only works in certain ways in these reviews, ahem.)

3. "We found that it can't resolve bright lights as well as the iPhone 4S's camera can."

Well then you found something nobody else was able to do, to make an iPhone better pictures than any up-to-date Xperia...

I actually looked at those 2 photos and thought the Xperia one was the better one if it was meant to demonstrate low light abilities as it showed a lot more details than the gloomy darkness in the iPhone one.

I would assume that if you're set up for low-light shots then that picture will suffer from spotlights such as in the example, but it's just a bit of flaring which is the trade-off for actually being able to make out the rest of the scene.

Before someone thinks I'm some misogynistic pig actually I'm a big fan of women everywhere (FWIW I've just spent a decent amount of money directly on getting Tammy Baldwin, Claire McCaskill etc elected) but at this point I have to say that at Ars' mobile section they have clearly demonstrated they are simply not up to this otherwise not too challenging task [...]

The reason you come across as misogynic is that you attribute the percieved flaws of the article to the author's sex.

I'm currently in the market for a new phone so I'm happy to see all these new phone reviews. Most of the reviews I've seen about new phones have complained about the camera. Which phone currently has the best camera? Back on topic, its a shame this phone is going for a gimmick with the bond stuff and not making a better phone. I feel like some people would have spent the extra money on a phone just for the bond theme. Though the phone doesn't sound awful for just $99.

Lol. I have to agree with what seems to be the consensus here: Although the lights show more glare on the photo, the level of visible detail and colour on the Xperia is waaaay better than on the Iphone. When a bright light is in my field of view in real life and I close my eyes a bit, the glare goes away but I can see less and everything looks darker, that basically looks like what I'm seeing here. I'm looking to upgrade my 4S once my contract expires, and I've been thinking of getting the T, and I think your photos, rather than what you wrote may have made uo my mind. Thanks for the comparison.

I'm currently in the market for a new phone so I'm happy to see all these new phone reviews. Most of the reviews I've seen about new phones have complained about the camera. Which phone currently has the best camera? Back on topic, its a shame this phone is going for a gimmick with the bond stuff and not making a better phone.

Quod erat desmonstrandum - dear editors: if these reviews were done by technically adept people you wouldn't get these rather glaringly incorrect reviews and mis-firing conclusions which in turn wouldn't give people wrong ideas about products.

Quote:

I feel like some people would have spent the extra money on a phone just for the bond theme. Though the phone doesn't sound awful for just $99.

I suggest you to walk into a store and check it out yourself - you will see that despite what these 'lightweight review(er)s' here at Ars it's actually a very high quality phone with a camera that hands down the best on the market, it's built on the 1.5GHz fastest hardware platform on the world (Qualcomm Snapdragon S4), in dual-core flavor (Krait)... anyone with more clue than comparing numbers from online specs knows very well that this is a pretty high-end phone - especially compared to the iPhone, ahem.

Before someone thinks I'm some misogynistic pig actually I'm a big fan of women everywhere (FWIW I've just spent a decent amount of money directly on getting Tammy Baldwin, Claire McCaskill etc elected) but at this point I have to say that at Ars' mobile section they have clearly demonstrated they are simply not up to this otherwise not too challenging task [...]

The reason you come across as misogynic is that you attribute the percieved flaws of the article to the author's sex.

Just one thing.. What is the thing that she described with the browser fonts? I do a lot of browsing on my phone and browsing needs to be decent..

I don't know what she's referring to but it's not the only place in the article... that being said I've seen Chrome phone rendering errors on several ICS phones so it's entirely possible her unit was affected.

My only issue with Chrome is that if turn on spell-checking without auto-correction then I have problems typing into forms, it simply keeps doubling my last characters unless I select EVERY word from the offered ones. It's not an issue for me because I think mobile Firefox is vastly superior to anything out there and it syncs everything better than Chrome does, let alone desktop Chrome's documented issues with several different site engines, it's random issues etc.

ANother awesome stuff in Firefox on Adnroid is Read Mode: after loading the page you can click on the book icon on the address bar and it basically strips all the formatting that makes the content hard to read but keeps the links and presents everything like an ebook, in a very easy-to-read format... I have blue eyes, waer glasses so it's a great feature for me.

...I clearly laid out my reasons which, at least to me, all point to the same direction: women apparently not interested/bored of/bad to judge the level of details a technical review must carry, it's simple as that.

Since you apparently only trust male opinions, allow me to back up Casey's characteristically great review: this is Sony's version of the Galaxy SIII, released some six months after the Galaxy SIII. It's great that you like it so much that you need to talk about it after every phone review we do, but you can't be surprised that we don't agree with you.

The problem with this phone really is the "James Bond" branding. If you can afford a phone this expensive, you shouldn't be saying to yourself "I'll be so cool if I get this phone!"Surely this will only work on mid-teenage boys, and they'll only get it if their parents have more money than sense.What proportion of people do we reckon are actually put off by the sponsorship?I certainly am.

(There does seem to be a peculiar kneejerk response from some commenters to anything written by a woman on this site. I'd expect that more of slashdot than here to be honest.)

...I clearly laid out my reasons which, at least to me, all point to the same direction: women apparently not interested/bored of/bad to judge the level of details a technical review must carry, it's simple as that.

Since you apparently only trust male opinions, allow me to back up Casey's characteristically great review: this is Sony's version of the Galaxy SIII, released some six months after the Galaxy SIII. It's great that you like it so much that you need to talk about it after every phone review we do, but you can't be surprised that we don't agree with you.

Honestly I don't give a crap what her sex is Andrew. I will say this though, that I often find that the author's articles lack and come off very opinionated, inaccurate fluff pieces mostly. I find myself hesitating on clicking on articles written by Johnston.

do you realize that they use the same Sony sensor except the iPhone got an older generation one, with the camera part actually delivering the image to the iPhone already digitized?

Are you unaware that image processing can take place after the sensor?Is it literally impossible that other factors can affect the quality of pictures?

What I most enjoy from your contributions is rank hypocrisy:

szlevi wrote:

Even worse... you are not a native English speaker, right?

Are you aware that there is no English word "chich"?Perhaps sir meant the word "chic"?The phrase

szlevi wrote:

"bad to judge"

also seems like shonky English to me.

Although Quod Erat Demonstrandum is not actually English, perhaps sir would care to spell it correctly if he is going to drop it in order to feel like a big man who knows his Latin tags?

Sir may also wish to consult the cnet dot com review of the phone which suggests that autofocus problems can slow down the camera response time. The current Ars Reviewer is not alone in finding the camera has some speed issues.Sir can rest assured that the cnet review has been written by a bona fide owner of a membrum virile

Before someone thinks I'm some misogynistic pig actually I'm a big fan of women everywhere (FWIW I've just spent a decent amount of money directly on getting Tammy Baldwin, Claire McCaskill etc elected) but at this point I have to say that at Ars' mobile section they have clearly demonstrated they are simply not up to this otherwise not too challenging task (see other reviews citing benchmarks without even understanding native vs java-based apps etc.) Whether it's because it's not 'chich'-enough or lack of diligence or something else, I don't know.But the quality of this review is simply waaay below what I've come to expect here, sorry.

You've just confirmed that you are misogynistic by bringing it up.

I concur.

In my experience, if you have to tell people you aren't something, you usually are and are the last one to recognize it.

Sony makes good Cybershot cameras, but although I like my Canon 400D, I think the Sony Alpha series of DSLRs takes photos where the colour seems to 'pop' more, and if I was buying again I would seriously consider the Alpha. So, why doesn't Sony get their phone camera team to set them up so the images look as bright and colourful as from an Alpha camera.

As for the comparison shot with the iPhone 4S in low light, certainly the Sony TL looks brighter, but to me it doesn't look better. Subjectively I far prefer the output of the 4S in this case (and for balance I have noticed other reviews recently where the iPhone 4S is subjectively worse).

2. "Still, the Xperia TL turns out some decent photos even in low-light scenarios."

Yeah, it actually mops the floor with the iPhone or any other phone around me including the Nexus 4, let's just get the facts out (something that only works in certain ways in these reviews, ahem.)

3. "We found that it can't resolve bright lights as well as the iPhone 4S's camera can."

Well then you found something nobody else was able to do, to make an iPhone better pictures than any up-to-date Xperia...

I actually looked at those 2 photos and thought the Xperia one was the better one if it was meant to demonstrate low light abilities as it showed a lot more details than the gloomy darkness in the iPhone one.

I would assume that if you're set up for low-light shots then that picture will suffer from spotlights such as in the example, but it's just a bit of flaring which is the trade-off for actually being able to make out the rest of the scene.

Actually the LT shot was a little overexposed. It might also be suffering from flaring after AE lock, or dirt on the lens. We'll need more photos, and photos in more environments, to better evaluate it. Also, note that the LT image produced is higher nominal resolution, and is taken at ISO 400 vs the iPhone's 160.The cookies are at ISO 640, and it produces a relatively low noise photo for a phone sensor, though it's hard to tell how much softer that makes the shot due to the subject. From the above, we can't say with any certainty how good/bad the TL's camera is in relation to the comparison.

Anyway, when is the review of this phone coming out?

I'm also looking forward to a test of the Xperia T without the LTE. Perhaps battery life will be better.

As far as the comparison photos go, the Sony's is substantially overexposed and has much of the bar background blown out by the spotlights. If Casey was actively trying to pick up her own reflections in the polished tap, then that worked. The iPhone is more contrasty and slightly underexposed, but better balanced overall. Also note its much better edge sharpness, although that may in part be due to its having chosen to focus on the background. The iPhone can override that by a tap on the desired focus area, as (presumably?) can the Sony, but I doubt that most cell phone camera users would bother. The iPhone picture could also be brightened up in post-processing, whereas the Sony's is pretty much going to be stuck with those blown out highlights. Again, most users wouldn't attempt that anyway.

While neither image is perfect, overall the advantage goes to the iPhone version.

I always enjoy Casey's articles—she writes well and with a dry wit that I find appealing. Contrast that with the horrible, grade school level found on other sites (e.g. Anandtech) that's like fingernails on a blackboard. And talking of fingernails... ;-)

Just one thing.. What is the thing that she described with the browser fonts? I do a lot of browsing on my phone and browsing needs to be decent..

I don't know what she's referring to but it's not the only place in the article... that being said I've seen Chrome phone rendering errors on several ICS phones so it's entirely possible her unit was affected.

My only issue with Chrome is that if turn on spell-checking without auto-correction then I have problems typing into forms, it simply keeps doubling my last characters unless I select EVERY word from the offered ones. It's not an issue for me because I think mobile Firefox is vastly superior to anything out there and it syncs everything better than Chrome does, let alone desktop Chrome's documented issues with several different site engines, it's random issues etc.

ANother awesome stuff in Firefox on Adnroid is Read Mode: after loading the page you can click on the book icon on the address bar and it basically strips all the formatting that makes the content hard to read but keeps the links and presents everything like an ebook, in a very easy-to-read format... I have blue eyes, waer glasses so it's a great feature for me.

Thanks for the info. The browser on the Iphone has the read function as well.. I love it. Glad to hear that other phone browsers on Android has it too.. I was kind of afraid that I would lose that if I get an Android based phone.